That fruit suddenly didn’t seem all that appealing. What she needed was some real food and a stiff drink.

  ***

  Burn escorted the two Cyborgs back to the surface. Using his communicator, he contacted his men to join him. They no longer needed the antique communications, but they would update it if they were staying. Staying. That appealed to him. Jace and Zenn were soon with him. Their surprise and delight evident on their faces to the confusion of the newcomers. They weren’t that human, yet. He instructed the data upload and Zenn connected to the Cyborgs and all three glazed over, while sharing the data upload. When completed the two new Cyborgs both turned to him. “We are not free,” D838 told him. “We are contracted, my team are still in the Wilds, some are injured, and the rest of our people are still out there.”

  Burn knew what that felt like. “We will find them brother and set you free.”

  ***

  Burn left with his men. He would be back for the female, he told himself. He hovered by the off-worlder ramp. His logic told him it was futile to keep watch while they took off for the Wilds, but he couldn’t drag himself away. She was down here somewhere and there were things to be resolved. He had not wanted a mate but when pressed, the words flowed from his mouth and he knew them to be true.

  She was his mate. A compatible female recognised on a DNA level as his perfect match. There was no doubt he found her pleasing. His body responded as never before for a female. He didn’t know if that was the result of having choice in the matter, or not being sold to perform or ordered to. Nearly all Cyborgs had some experience of one or the other or both. It was distasteful to all of them, but they’d not be able to refuse. An order or contract had to be obeyed unless released from it.

  The moment he’d scented her with Cyborgs he’d feared, and his anger had been set free. He’d been harsher than he’d intended. Having not scented them on her before, he’d wondered how he’d missed it. Had he been that fixated on her that his instincts had failed to kick in? Unsure and uninformed, he feared the worst. She owned them. His relief at finding that she didn’t had been palatable. The female had not owed his brothers or forced them into working for her. And he knew then that he’d done her an injustice.

  From the data he’d retrieved from his brothers, she’d been tracking a male who’d sold their tech without their permission, who had lied and used them for monetary gain, not fulfilling his end of the deal. Exactly what he had taken, no one was sure yet, but Burn would find out. There were damaged Cyborgs on that crashed ship and if he found the male had been less than honourable, he would be swiftly dealt with.

  It was the same male his female was hunting. His female? That sounded good in his mind. Data streaming across his optic telling him that was an illogical response. Burn smiled. Logic and females did not mix. He’d heard the Admiral and his seconds say it many times and he knew it to be true. Female’s were not logical in their actions and words and yet, no Cyborg would voice this to his mate. She would not accept it and his life would become hell. No. That was a fact only Cyborgs held close.

  Did he want such confusion in his life? Burn felt the pull of the two most logical answers, both completely opposite. His logic verses? What? His need? His want? His passion? Burn mentally searched for the source of his conflict and his systems automatically ran a diagnostic. He understood, it wouldn’t find the answer. It was based in emotion and unless he turned his emotions and pain receptors off, he was at their mercy. Led by his DNA searching for what it needed.

  The ramp closed on him and he turned away heading for the flight deck. Zenn had the location of the crashed ship and they relayed the information to his ship. They would place a location beacon over it and start to repair it. His brothers were right, this ship could not be left on this world. They were not ready yet.

  For now, he wanted access to their mainframe. Wanted to know where they’d come from and where the rest of his brothers were. The admiral would determine if it was an honourable contract or if they were indentured. He hoped it was the former. The Admiral would not be kind to the latter and they would enjoy bringing justice.

  Burn knew humans never seemed to learn. They made the same mistakes over and over again. In all his generations, the strong preyed on the weak. And a few, the unique few, would fight for the weak and win. They were the good humans. A Cyborg could be the strongest in the room, the deadliest, but it didn’t mean he held any power. And someone, always wanted to take advantage of that fact. Data responses to his questions streamed across his optic. One of them would be right.

  ***

  There was banging going on and it wasn’t just in her head. Someone stop banging on her bloody door! Crept gently across her mind. Angel blinked and moaned trying to focus. Her head was killing her. Her mouth felt like sand. What the fuck had she been drinking? Spying the glass of water by the bed, she gingerly sat up reaching for it and knocked it back. It was cool and refreshing. She couldn’t think how that was possible, she’d not put it there last night. The drum in her head seemed to be on repeat. Not that she could remember that or complaining. Angel reached out tentatively to put the glass down and the door banging started up again. FFS! Someone had better be dead.

  She moaned and dragged her body to the side of the bed and threw back the covers. Her head banging as loudly as the door. What had she drunk last night? She hung her head, too heavy to hold it up. Straining to open her eyes. She needed to wake the fuck up. Slowly she rose to her feet and instantly regretted it. Pain flashed through her mind. “Awwww. Owww,” her hand flew to her forehead and she sat back down, moving far too quickly as the room spun.

  A pair of hands appeared under her nose through the blur with an injector in one and more water in the other. Angel screwed up her eyes. They were real right? She wasn’t dreaming? She looked at the hands for a moment and reached out for the injector and water. They felt real, then the body belonging to them knelt before her. She placed the injector at her neck and engaged the mechanism, knocking back half the water wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. Was she surprised to see him? No not really. He’d said he’d find her, and he had.

  “Do… I bother …..asking how you got in?” she asked him quietly handing back the injector. She had no idea what was in it, but guessed it was to help her, not kill her. He could have done that at any time while she was sleeping.

  “Would there be any point?” he answered just as quietly putting the injector away.

  She knew there wasn’t and drank the rest of the water. The banging started up again. She pointed in its vague direction. “Who the fuck is that?” The pain was rapidly receeding. She looked up at him feeling better by the moment. “What was in the injector I feel better?”

  He brushed the hair from her face, leaned in and brushed his cheek along the side of hers. “That much alcohol is not good for such a small person,” he told her. Angel pulled back and stared at him, it was on the tip of her tongue to say ‘ok Dad’ but didn’t. He cracked a smile, clearly reading her. “Nano’s,” he told her. “Mine, we all keep backups in case of injury. They will burn through the alcohol quickly and not harm you.”

  She nodded and no pain. Angel smiled and sat up a little more easily. “Their good, and at the door?”

  “The human male identified as Bertl. He is not happy.” Angel huffed and got up, again surprised to feel no pain and walked into the bathroom. She did her business, ran a quick shower and washed up, running a brush through her hair and changing her clothes. She came out again feeling like herself once more looking for her weapons.

  She found them on the dresser and put them on. The sword had been her fathers. An Antique that was still as sharp as ever. The short one, her father’s gift to her mother. She now used both for protection. Her father having drummed that into her with disciplined lessons as a child. These were not toys, they carried death. The door started banging again, this time accompanied by tirade of abuse calling her out. She turned to face Burn and smiled. “Time to say hello.” And headed down the stairs.

  She walked across the hallway to the front door and pulled on it just as the fist was going to pound on it again. “Bertl, how lovely to see you.” He stood perplexed for a moment caught unawares but soon regained his composure.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, tracking me across the Wilds and taking what’s mine?” he shouted blustering his anger. Several people turned to look. The rumour mills would soon be in action, her reputation taking a hit if people thought she was unreliable and not honest but, she refused to back down and be bullied by the likes of him. She would take the hit if needed.

  Angle put her hands across her chest. “What exactly do you think belongs to you?” she called out. More people stopping to stare.

  “You know damn well what belongs to me and you went after it.” he blustered.

  Angel shrugged, “I went looking for you and some answers, I wasn’t expecting to find a group of people you tricked and lied to and kept them in the Wilds, when you could have brought them here to safety.”

  Bertl’s face flamed red. People were now sneering at him. “I didn’t do either of those things,” he shouted. “I went to help them.”

  “O,” Angel replied, “that’s good, so you don’t have a problem with me helping them after all then?” she coldly stared at him. He’d been caught in his own web and they both knew it. “I’m glad you came, I have someone who’d like to say hello.”

  She stepped aside, and Burn took her place. Bertl looked ready to make a run for it. “He’d like to thank you,” she told him. “Personally.”

  ***

  Bertl not unsurprisingly didn’t stick around. He made a run for it and as he did, Angel turned away and headed to the kitchen. It was neat and tidy, and not at all how she’d left it the night before. The debris that had littered it had been cleaned away. She heard the front door close and felt the air move around her and guessed silent and deadly had walked back in. “Did you clean up?” she asked turning towards him.

  Burn leaned against the wall and shrugged. “You’re messy.”

  Angel tried not to grin. She was. She guessed messy wasn’t a Cyborg trait. A heavenly smell was bubbling away in her coda jug. “What’s that?” she asked going over to it. It smelt wonderful.

  “Coffee, the good stuff,” he told her from behind her. He turned her around and she found herself picked up and placed to one side while he poured two drinks and gave her one. “It’s hot, careful.” Angel sniffed at it, blew on it and then took a sip.

  An amazing intense flavour hit her tongue. Her eyes widened in delight. She’d heard about coffee from Old Earth. “What does it do?”

  He shrugged then took a large gulp of his own. “It has caffeine and is a natural bi product of a bean that is grown, dried and ground up. People drink it all day long, but it is known to refresh in the mornings. You could grow it here, nearer the Wilds.”

  She blew on it a bit more and took a couple of mouthfuls. “I like it.” She smiled looking up at him. He put his mug down and came towards her. Opening her legs, he nestled in-between them and slipped his hand inside her buttoned top and caressed her breast.

  “These taste better,” he told her slipping the buttons free, pulling the fabric aside, leaning in to taste her. His mouth sucking her in and his tongue playing with her nipple. Angel held his head to her, enjoying the feel of him once more at her breast. Her fingers slipping easily through his long hair. Hoping it was a promise of things to come. He nipped at her nipple held between his teeth. Her body flared, and she knew if they did not move now, he’d be fucking in minutes.

  She pushed on him. “Food, I’m starving. What do you eat?”

  Burn sucked in her breast harder and heard her gasp. He smiled around her flesh and slowly withdrew, pulling the fabric back over it. He looked at her and raised both eyebrows. “Apart from you? We eat like you do.”

  Angel’s face flared, memories of him eating her flooded her again. His hand stroked down the heat in her face and neck. “So responsive,” he told her.

  Angel nodded, “good to know.”

  “You going to cook?” he asked her stroking her skin.

  Angel burst out laughing. “Hell no, I buy. Let’s go.” She drank the last of her ‘coffee’ and walked to the front door. She turned not sure if he was behind her or not and there he was, right on her heels. “Why can’t I hear you?”

  Burn smiled at her. “You make too much noise to hear.”

  Angel looked up and wasn’t sure she like this guy. He was rude. But he was an amazing lay, her mind reminded her, and he hadn’t taken advantage of her while sleeping. That gave him some points she guessed. He’d said ‘they’ didn’t lie. It seemed that was true, but he’d broken into her house and that, was bad.

  “How’d you get in?” she asked walking across the square.

  “Electronic pad. Not too complicated.” Angel stopped, and he turned back towards her. Was he deliberately being rude again?

  “That was some of the best tech here.” She told him proudly.

  Burn shrugged. “It’s not Cyborg.”

  Angel narrowed her eyes. It annoyed the hell out of her, but she couldn’t argue with that. It wasn’t Cyborg tech, it was hers. She slowly started walking again and he waited while she caught up to him. Angel didn’t feel the need to fill the space and nor did he. She liked that about him. Like her, there was a lot going on inside, but he didn’t show it. The market was coming alive as it always did this time of day. Stalls being put up. People loading what they had to sell. They walked in silence until they reached one of her favourite cafes. Angel walked in and took her usual table in the back and they both sat down.

  “What is good here?” he asked her.

  “I’m not sure you’d recognise anything.” She told him honestly and read off several items she and her mother had liked.

  It all felt a little too comfortable, a little too domestic. All she could think about was having his cock buried inside her and it made her uncomfortable. She was more than that. More than going from one fuck to another. It wasn’t like her. On edge she ordered her usual and added a few extras feeling starving. Then sat back and looked on in amazement as he ordered almost everything she’d told him. Seriously? He was going to eat all that?

  “That’s a lot of food.” She couldn’t help but point out.

  The female was looking at him strangely. Like he’d done something she couldn’t understand. His implants ran systems and checks. Comparing his behaviour to hers and he got a winner. He’d ordered five times what she had. She was confused by the amount of food.

  “Our nano’s burn up food to keep us in optimum working capacity. We will eat a lot of it and in turn, our bodies will burn through it fast. That is also why you are compelled to eat, my nano’s are demanding energy.”

  Angel stared at him, it was a reminder he wasn’t human. “I’m not overly thrilled you marked me during sex. So much so that other Cyborgs can see it. Am I now tainted with Cyborg nano’s too?”

  Burn didn’t believe the heat she placed in her words, it didn’t register as anger. More like, curiosity, with some pleasure mixed in with it. It sounded good on her lips. Enticing. Those lips looked good around his cock too, he reminded himself.

  He smiled. “Marking is a part of who we are. We had sex, many times, my nano’s will be all over your skin and in you, being absorb by your body and over time, becoming part of your own DNA. Only we can see it and more …….. socialised Cyborgs would not mention it as humans find that kind of thing impolite. We adapt and learn. The nano’s will do their job and burn out and as they do your body will reject them without you even knowing.”

  She nodded accepting the truth of it and looked at the food. “I’m guessing you were very hungry then.”

  “I am Cyborg.” He told her matter a factually. Like that answered the question.

  The waitress arrived with her meal and part of his. Angel couldn’t image eating all that and worked her way through her own, wondering where the hell he was putting it all. She washed it down with some Petrei juice. To her surprise, he ate precisely, carefully, almost tastefully while he cleared his plate. And after, she was sure he was looking for more.

  She had to think of something else other than his mouth moving. Her body heated, thinking at how good he was with it. He focused on her and breathed in smiling. “I can scent your desire for me. When we are done, I will fuck you.”

  Angel blinked, not sure he’d heard right and cleared her throat looking around to see if anyone heard him. She needed to change the subject before she said yes. “Have you picked up the other men?” He seemed to enjoy breathing her in and focus intensely on her eyes. Angle tried not to fidget.

  “Cyborgs, not men and yes, we are aiding them in fixing their ship.”

  “And the injured?” she asked.

  “Our medic is helping, we have a med bed that can work on Cyborgs.”

  Angel frowned. “What’s a med bed D838 mentioned it before?”

  “It is something that works to fix illnesses and injuries on humans generally, but we have some that can now work on us, we have no Designers anymore.”

  Angel couldn’t believe it. They had something that could fix injuries and illnesses. She leaned forward intrigued. “Can we get one of these med beds? There are many people that are ill here.”

 

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